I've been a flight simmer for almost 40 years and a regular visitor to this and other flight sim websites for decades. Personally, I'm absolutely thrilled with the current state of Microsoft Flight Simulator. It's the sim I always dreamed about. But I've noticed something very curious in reading the "problem" reports on this forum regarding MSFS: Most of the complaints come from simmers with state-of-the-art, high-end computers. Why should this be? Shouldn't simmers with better computers get better performance -- and be better satisfied -- than those of us with mediocre systems from 7 years ago?

The answer is that simmers with high-end systems feel they shouldn't have to waste time tweaking their graphics settings. Their system is just too good to bother with making empirical observations of their computer's real-world performance and making adjustments accordingly to sim settings. No. It's always Asobo's fault. First of all, I've seen many posts in this forum -- and I'm sure you have too -- whose obvious, underlying purpose was neither to give nor seek technical advice on MSFS, but rather to humble-brag about their new graphics card or their high-end CPU. (e.g., "I can't believe I'm only getting 45 FPS with my new 3090ti. Come on, Asobo!")

Below, I have created a fictional post. I just made this up. It's not aimed at anyone in particular. But it's intended, with a bit of exaggeration, to capture the attitude of some simmers with high-end computers:

"Well, I'm finished with MSFS. I keep waiting for things to improve, but they never do. I can't even fly now without suffering constant stutters. This is ridiculous. I'll spawn my flight in the 747 and can see the plane on all 16 of my monitors at 144 refresh rate. My 75 add-ons are properly stored in my Community Folder. And of course I removed these add-ons (allegedly) during installation. My Windows 12 drivers are all up-to-date. Wearing both my VR headset and my Track IR at the same time, I can see the plane sitting on the runway in 8K resolution with the settings on SUPER ULTRA STEROIDAL SUPREME HYPERDRIVE. My 3090ti seems to be doing fine. My 128GB of system RAM appear to be enough. Then, immediately after takeoff, I'm flying the 747 at 600mph at 300 feet over downtown Tokyo when, bam, my FPS drops to only 28FPS. How did the beta testers miss this? This ruins my immersion. I'm just happy I still have XP and P3D installed. Goodbye everyone."

My point is this: There is a reason why simmers with modest computers generally aren't the ones complaining on this forum -- because they have realistic expectations. My own system is seven years old. I have a 1070 graphics card. Yet I get superb performance and graphics quality out of the sim. I'm in Heaven with the latest update. Why? Because I take the time to make adjustments and observe how these adjustments work or don't work. That's not bad advice, even for you fortunate enough to afford high-end computers. Get real.

Well great effort, however you should not generalize (as your topic header suggests) in your topic, because not "every simmer with high end hardware" is in the same ball park 😉

Edited April 27, 20224 yr by awf

1 minute ago, awf said:

Well great effort, however you should not generalize (as your topic header suggests) in your topic, because not "every simmer with high end hardware" is in the same ball park 😉

Very true. I stand corrected.

25 minutes ago, David Mills said:

There is a reason why simmers with modest computers generally aren't the ones complaining on this forum

I agree with your observations. I might add that users with high end pcs tend to be more knowledgeable, hence more critical to get their money's worth. I do have a very powerful system and yet I don't complain, on the contrary I am very happy with MSFS, because I have gone through the FS1 stoneage. 😄

Edited April 27, 20224 yr by turbomax

23 minutes ago, David Mills said:

I've been a flight simmer for almost 40 years and a regular visitor to this and other flight sim websites for decades. Personally, I'm absolutely thrilled with the current state of Microsoft Flight Simulator. It's the sim I always dreamed about. But I've noticed something very curious in reading the "problem" reports on this forum regarding MSFS: Most of the complaints come from simmers with state-of-the-art, high-end computers. Why should this be? Shouldn't simmers with better computers get better performance -- and be better satisfied -- than those of us with mediocre systems from 7 years ago?

The answer is that simmers with high-end systems feel they shouldn't have to waste time tweaking their graphics settings. Their system is just too good to bother with making empirical observations of their computer's real-world performance and making adjustments accordingly to sim settings. No. It's always Asobo's fault. First of all, I've seen many posts in this forum -- and I'm sure you have too -- whose obvious, underlying purpose was neither to give nor seek technical advice on MSFS, but rather to humble-brag about their new graphics card or their high-end CPU. (e.g., "I can't believe I'm only getting 45 FPS with my new 3090ti. Come on, Asobo!")

Below, I have created a fictional post. I just made this up. It's not aimed at anyone in particular. But it's intended, with a bit of exaggeration, to capture the attitude of some simmers with high-end computers:

"Well, I'm finished with MSFS. I keep waiting for things to improve, but they never do. I can't even fly now without suffering constant stutters. This is ridiculous. I'll spawn my flight in the 747 and can see the plane on all 16 of my monitors at 144 refresh rate. My 75 add-ons are properly stored in my Community Folder. And of course I removed these add-ons (allegedly) during installation. My Windows 12 drivers are all up-to-date. Wearing both my VR headset and my Track IR at the same time, I can see the plane sitting on the runway in 8K resolution with the settings on SUPER ULTRA STEROIDAL SUPREME HYPERDRIVE. My 3090ti seems to be doing fine. My 128GB of system RAM appear to be enough. Then, immediately after takeoff, I'm flying the 747 at 600mph at 300 feet over downtown Tokyo when, bam, my FPS drops to only 28FPS. How did the beta testers miss this? This ruins my immersion. I'm just happy I still have XP and P3D installed. Goodbye everyone."

My point is this: There is a reason why simmers with modest computers generally aren't the ones complaining on this forum -- because they have realistic expectations. My own system is seven years old. I have a 1070 graphics card. Yet I get superb performance and graphics quality out of the sim. I'm in Heaven with the latest update. Why? Because I take the time to make adjustments and observe how these adjustments work or don't work. That's not bad advice, even for you fortunate enough to afford high-end computers. Get real.

Sounds like are sad that you don't have an high end system and you are trying to justify your middle of the road hardware. There is always going to be an elite group of users who will brag about what they have.  A sage once said "Happiness is not about having what you want but wanting what you have". 

45 minutes ago, David Mills said:

"Well, I'm finished with MSFS. I keep waiting for things to improve, but they never do. I can't even fly now without suffering constant stutters. This is ridiculous. I'll spawn my flight in the 747 and can see the plane on all 16 of my monitors at 144 refresh rate. My 75 add-ons are properly stored in my Community Folder. And of course I removed these add-ons (allegedly) during installation. My Windows 12 drivers are all up-to-date. Wearing both my VR headset and my Track IR at the same time, I can see the plane sitting on the runway in 8K resolution with the settings on SUPER ULTRA STEROIDAL SUPREME HYPERDRIVE. My 3090ti seems to be doing fine. My 128GB of system RAM appear to be enough. Then, immediately after takeoff, I'm flying the 747 at 600mph at 300 feet over downtown Tokyo when, bam, my FPS drops to only 28FPS. How did the beta testers miss this? This ruins my immersion. I'm just happy I still have XP and P3D installed. Goodbye everyone."

I'm dead...😭🤣😂

Truth is this is how alot of RTX 3080/3090 HP Reverb G2 owners sound.... 😆

Like hello? You are running the latest GPU which still doesn't have fully matured optimized drivers and trying to drive a 4K resolution VR HMD, you gotta expect performance issues unless you start downsampling and lowering in sim settings.🤣

 

Edited April 27, 20224 yr by blueshark747

I think there should be enough options available in the sim setup to suffocate even the most powerful computer today. It’s up to the user to define their sweet spot. It’s unreasonable to assume that flight simulator customers are computer-illiterate, i.e. the loudest squeaking wheel should not receive the most oil.
For example I would like to have more options related to weather fidelity and settle for 24 fps.

I've never seen a brush drawn so word not allowed large in one post.  

Frankly i think you should delete it. But im sure im in the minority here. 

I have very high-end hardware, but given my experience with sims, I run it on HIGH even though MSFS suggested ULTRA.. I only keep clouds at ULTRA and everything else on HIGH.. I even turn PG off and lock FPS @ 30.. the sim is super smooth and fluid and the textures are crisp without the melted buildings thanks to turning PG OFF. I also toyed with PSXT + RT for a few weeks but ultimately gave that up in favor of smooth performance with static AI. So, yeah, I think i'm pretty happy with performance per se.. a little more juice w'd help once AIG becomes mainstream.. that's the big killer, esp in mega airports..

It is mainly due to the fact that people do not know that most of the settings have something between low and ultra 😉 A phenomenon not limited to MSFS btw, you can easily observe this in any other game...

Kids these days with their fancy Sega Megadrives and electronic Space Invaders. Pfffftttt. 

To be fair, I would probably be annoyed with mediocre performance if I had spent £2000 on a tricked up circuit board with 20 fans and some fancy neon lights

This very true. Even F19 had to be run in 386DX in turbo mod. Each sims would take the best of PC of it's era! 

Funny post, and feels right at a "gut" level, if you look past the very broad brush strokes.   As many have noted here and elsewhere in the past, there is a lot of seemingly over-entitled whining on flight sim forums that can be pretty eye-rolling at times.  But...

While I suspect there is a bit of humble-bragging from some people who post about "I only get 28FPS with my SUPER ULTRA MEGA card!  offensive initials not allowed!", I don't think that represents the best portion of those kind of complaints.   I think it's something a bit more mundane, a bit of a sampling error:   if you take the pool of "jackholes who are going to get unreasonably upset if they can't run the sim to their special snowflake expectations", then by nature it's likely to be biased towards a population that has spent more money on hardware.  If you're not that passionate about flight simming, you probably haven't spent as much on hardware for it in the first place, so you're less likely to feel personally attacked when, after spending all that filthy lucre, you don't get what you want, whether those expectations are reasonable or not.

It's not that many/most/all simmers with high-end computers are unreasonable jerks.  It's that the collection of unreasonable jerks in this context will naturally be biased towards those with high-end computers.

But boy can they be annoying. 🙄 I feel ya there.  

Edited April 27, 20224 yr by DeepestRed

Counterpoint:  people with high end PC's have been simmers for a long tim (up until MSFS they needed very powerful PC's to run addons etc) and understand a lot of about aviation - therefore when aviation basics are missing from a simulation they become frustrated.

Additionally, while I have not made any scientific surveys, people involved in real world aviation, would have the financial means to purchase a high end PC in hope that basics of flight were going to be simulated properly.

I haven't always had a super high end PC but I now have a high end (less the GPU which is actually quite good still!) and am rarely complaining about perf.  I do complain about basic aviation principles which occasionally don't seem to be modeled in this sim (although it is getting better).

Edited April 27, 20224 yr by ryanbatc